


Omnia Mors Aequat

by sargent



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 20:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20748209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sargent/pseuds/sargent
Summary: Harry died and came back. Death accompanied him.





	Omnia Mors Aequat

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in half an hour because [star_k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/star_k) said "have you ever thought that thanos horrible original plot fits with hp cause death is a real character?" and, well, it just escalated from there. Love you, thanks for the crazy ideas, hope someday you have 95 euros to do paragliding in Açores.

  


_ __ _  


“Boy.”

“Shut up.”

“Boy.”

“Shut up.”

“Look at me, boy.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

“You must look.”

Harry looks.

It’s not doing anything. It’s not even looking at him. It has its fingers in the window pane and moonlight through its translucent vest.

“Are you looking?”

“Please, let me sleep.” Harry whimpers.

“Tsk. So little. So quick. Sand. Insignificant.”

Harry doesn’t try to understand. He looks away, moves the pillow under his head, touches a finger to his invisibility cloak. Then a whole hand. It shimmers.

“No.” Death says, and the word reverberates throughout the room. Harry pauses, recoils his hand and presses his eyes instead, until there’s a white web floating on the endless black abyss. “You must look.”

Harry doesn’t. He takes a deep breath but the air becomes too thick. Then there’s the smell. Dirt. The taste. Infection. The feeling under his fingers. Decaying. The buzzing on his ears.

“Stop it!”

Death doesn’t move.

“Then look.”

“What are you even doing, anyway?!”

“Working.”

That makes Harry open his eyes. He’s up in a second, the common room sofa creaking under him, the white web now blinding him from the world around.

“No.”

“Not my master. Not anymore.”

“Don’t.”

“Do.”

“Not here. You already collected too much here.”

“Silly. So silly. Sand. Insignificant. Never too much. Never stops. Never ends. I take. And I give. I take. And I give.”

Harry blinks as the chant goes on, trying to focus. He runs to the window, looks down to the Hogwarts fields, but even the light from the full moon doesn’t help him see anything.

“Where? You tell me to look, but I’m not able to see.”

“Silly.”

And then he can feel. There’s the Earth underneath his knees, growing, changing, vibrating with energy. There’s the wind against his nape, cold, loud, coming from far away, beyond the trees. There’s the iron on the back of his tongue, bitter, burning, going down his throat like salt water on the deep sea.

There are the tears in his eyes, and he can see the red roads.

Red.

So red.

So black in the shadows, under the branches, under the leaves.

“Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood.” Death chants, and Harry is running again, his cloak in a hand, his wand on the other, a heavy feeling inside the heart, his head aching with a pain that was not his.

Stone walls, crooked stairs, wooden doors, golden gates. He doesn’t see. He doesn’t care. He can still smell the forest and touch the thorns. He can still swallow the ocean and see carmine.

And red.

And red.

And red.

And black.

“Blood.” Death whispers in his ear.

Harry doesn’t find him on a clearing, he’s hidden in the middle of the trees. There’s a loose hand around a low branch, there’s a torn robe beside his feet. There’s blood on the tips of his hair, and Harry knew. He knew it would be him.

Maybe it was his absence from the common room ritual, where Harry hides under his cloak and watches him, while he watches himself and tries to sleep.

Maybe it is the feeling that didn’t belong to him, the press on the chest, the numbing laughs, the sad dreams.

Maybe it is familiarity. It’s what he does, after all. Follows him. Finds him. Hurts him. Saves him.

Harry just knew.

“Draco.” He says to the night.

“He bleeds.” Death chants to the wind.

Harry steps ahead, kneels in front of him, and he doesn’t know where the blood is coming from. Somewhere. Anywhere.

Everything.

“What did you do?” He asks.

“Nothing.” Draco replies, and laughs. His throat is raspy, his voice is weak, but he laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and Harry touches his face and makes him look at him.

“Draco, what did you do?”

“Nothing.” He repeats, and the seconds are too long, the laughing gets too low, there’s a whisper on his lower lip.

“He bleeds. He bleeds. He bleeds.”

“What are you doing here?”

Draco stays quiet for too long. One second is too long. Then he speaks.

“I wanted to see.”

“What? What did you want to see?”

“The place.”

“The place.” Death says with him.

“What place?” Harry asks. His hands are travelling on his body, his mind is searching for spells, his nerves are shaking him whole, but Draco is calm and still. He touches Harry’s wrists, asks for attention, and silver collides with green.

“The place, Harry. The place where she lied for me.”

“The place, Harry.” Death echoes. “The place where you came to meet me.”

Harry shudders, but doesn’t look away. Draco doesn’t even blink.

“He looks at you.” Death says. “He looks at you. And looks. And looks. And looks. The way someone one day looked at me.”

Then It is all around them. It is the air. It is the smell. It is the shiver on their shoulders and the thick blood running down their sleeves.

“Look. Like that one, this one also bleeds.”

And Harry knows. It is time.

Maybe it is the knowledge Death keeps giving him.

Maybe it is the way he feels the land moving beneath his knees.

Maybe it is familiarity. It’s what he does, after all. Follows him. Finds him. Hurts him. Saves him.

Harry just knows.

“You won’t take him.”

Draco doesn’t know who he’s talking too. Or maybe he does. He’s already in between.

Death laughs. And laughs. And laughs.

“I will.”

“You won’t take him.” He repeats, groping around, finding his cloak, opening it wide, and hiding from It.

Death laughs. And laughs. And laughs.

It can look around and won’t see anything.

The forest is dark, the moon is high. There’s a patch on the ground where two boys are trying to not surrender to sleep.

It can’t see them, but It can see the destiny lines clustering like a nest between the dry leaves.

Death laughs. And laughs. And laughs.

“So little. So quick. Sand. Insignificant. Inconsequent. They bleed.”

The chanting goes on.

“Silly. So silly. I won’t take him.”

Then Death goes quieter. It’s just a whisper among the trees.

“Not today, silly boy. Not today.” 

It gets lower. It’s moving away.

If Harry peaked, he wouldn’t see anything.

But he would hear. He would hear not with his ears, but with his whole being.

The words would be on his own lips.

“But someday.” 

He would say with defeat.

“Someday I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm on tumblr as [wolflstar](https://wolflstar.tumblr.com).


End file.
